Men See Kids Digging Holes In Sand, Quickly Make Important Realization

Three Arizona men visiting a California beach for a family reunion left heroes after they helped save a toddler’s life.

Stuart Frost, 50, was with his family on the beach when his nephew Jesse Martin, 35, frantically ran over asking for help. Martin told his family that there was a woman looking for her 3-year-old son. 

“I could see this lady down the beach with her hands on her head, just distraught,” Martin told USA Today. “So I said to my family, ‘Let’s go help her.’ She was around like five people, and none of them got up to help her. It was really odd.”

The whole group, numbering about 30 people in all, split up to help the mother look for her son. Martin, Frost and Frost’s twin brother Steve then noticed a group of kids digging holes in the sand near where the mother said her son was last seen.

The three men started digging around the area where the kids had been digging and Martin felt something in the sand. He looked down and saw blue swim trunks sticking out of the sand.

“We started digging, and Jesse found this little boy, Brooks, and pulled him out,” Frost said. “He was ash grey, he was dead. He was dead. So we pulled him out, and the mom was just beside herself.”

The men were hopeful that they could still save the boy, so they acted quickly and performed CPR on him, according to the Independent Journal Review. After a few moments, they saw Brooks’ lips begin to quiver. Within a few minutes, he had started breathing again and was screaming for his mother.

According to USA Today, the boy was then rushed to the hospital, where he made a full recovery.

“One of the neat things about the story is that later that day, the family came over and showed us a picture of him laughing and smiling and doing okay,” Frost said. “It was truly a miracle.”

Martin, a father to a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old himself, said that he is no hero and that he was doing what he would have done for his own children.

“I’m not a hero,” he said. “I have two kids of my own, it scares me. I just like to help out and help anyone we can. I knew [the mom] was frantic and scared. Kids have gotten away from me, I know the feeling. I just tried to jump in and help.”

Newport Beach Lifeguard Battalion Chief Brent Jacobsen says that the toddler had fallen into one of the holes being dug at the beach, when sand collapsed on him. He says that sand entrapment is a danger that many beach-goers are unaware of.

“It is very easy to become entrapped,” Jacobsen said. “Sand can weigh several hundred pounds and you don’t even realize it.”

Sources: USA Today, Independent Journal Review / Photo credit: Steve & Jem Copley/Wikimedia Commons, Stuart Frost/USA Today